COLOMBIA: REBEL PLOT TO CRASH PLANE INTO BUILDINGS FOILED

Presidential Palace Said To Be Targeted

BOGOTA - The country's secret police announced yesterday they had foiled a
plot by leftist rebels to crash a plane into either the Congress building
or the presidential palace.

The plan was aborted with the arrest of Jorge Enrique Carvajalino, who
secret police director Colonel Gustavo Jaramillo called "the brains of the
attack."

Jaramillo said Carvajalino had recruited a pilot who had agreed to fly a
plane into the Congress building during Independence Day ceremonies on July
20 or into the presidential palace on Aug. 7, during the inauguration of
the next president.

He said Carvajalino was arrested in Bogota on July 18 - just two days
before Independence Day.

Carvajalino is the brother of a member of the top leadership of the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia known by his nom de guerre, or war
name, Andres Paris.

Jaramillo said the suicide pilot, who authorities have not identified, had
worked with drug traffickers and had agreed to fly the plane in exchange
for $2 million from the rebel group. The rebel group, also known as the
FARC, was planning to steal a plane in Bogota, or in the coastal city of
Baranquilla, he said.

Jaramillo did not address the issue of why the pilot would have accepted
payment for a mission in which he would be killed. However, during the drug
wars of the 1980s, the Medellin cartel reportedly recruited impoverished
teenagers for missions they knew would get them killed. The cartel would
promise to take care of the teenagers' families.

The FARC has threatened to bring its 38-year war against the government to
the cities, but most of the fighting continues to occur in the countryside.
Some 3,500 people die in the fighting every year, most of them civilians.

Over the past two months, four small aircraft ventured into Bogota airspace
without authorization. Despite the quick deployment of air force planes to
chase the aircraft, none were intercepted and authorities have been unable
to identify the pilots or aircraft or determine why they were flying over
Bogota.